PATIENT CHOICE OF PHARMACY AND SATISFACTION WITH PHARMACEUTICAL CARE - SLOVAK REGIONAL COMPARISON

Patient satisfaction has become a key component in quality assessments of pharmaceutical care. Patient perception and evaluation can be modified by many factors. The objectives of the present study were to compare factors influencing patient choice of pharmacy and evaluate patient satisfaction with pharmaceutical care provided by Slovak community pharmacies, with respect to region. A cross-sectional study was carried out from October to December 2013 on the basis of an anonymous questionnaire survey, including three dimensions of pharmaceutical care (Managing therapy, Interpersonal relationship, General satisfaction, a total of 29 items) with 5-choice Likert scale. The survey covered a total of 421 respondents from the Bratislava Region and 2,423 respondents from other Slovak regions (a total of 23 cities and 33 community pharmacies). Respondents from the Bratislava Region were significantly younger and more educated in comparison to respondents from other regions (p < 0.001). The statistically significant reason for pharmacy visit was the need to purchase over-the-counter medications and dietary supplements (p < 0.001) for respondents from the Bratislava Region and the factors influencing their choice of pharmacy were pharmacy location and convenient working hours (p = 0.008). Regardless of regions, the respondents have reported high satisfaction with pharmaceutical care (Managing therapy 16, Interpersonal relationship 9, General satisfaction 4 and Total satisfaction 29). The maximum dissatisfaction was found only in the Bratislava Region in all dimensions (Managing therapy 80, Interpersonal relationship 45, General satisfaction 20 and Total satisfaction 145). In other regions of Slovakia maximum dissatisfaction was not achieved in any of the evaluated dimensions (Managing therapy 77, Interpersonal relationship 44, General satisfaction 18 and Total satisfaction 139). Managing therapy was significantly worse in the Bratislava Region (p = 0.032), other dimensions did not show any statistically significant differences. In conclusion, the availability of pharmaceutical care and satisfied patients are essential in order to increase the quality of provided pharmaceutical care.